Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power[ by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith
Romans 1.1-5
3.The gospel is ALL about Jesus
The gospel “regarding his Son” (verse 3).
Here we come to the heart of God’s gospel. The gospel is about God’s Son. It is a truism to say that the gospel is about Jesus, but it must be said. We are often side-tracked into thinking that the gospel is about humanity.
The gospel neither has its origin in humanity nor does it have its content in humanity. The gospel is not about humanity and its needs, although these are not unimportant nor are they unrelated. The gospel is all about the Son. It is about Jesus. So when I am evangelising someone I must be speaking about Jesus. If I am not speaking about Jesus, God’s unique Son, then I am not preaching God’s gospel. When Jesus is preaching God’s gospel he is speaking about the Kingdom of God in which he and he alone is King (Mark 1:14,15)
Why am I making so much of this? Because people often forget it. I used to work in the Department of Evangelism. Many organisations sent us tracts and gospel teaching aids. They were designed to help people to evangelise their friends. I was struck with the fact that so many of these neither began with the Lord Jesus nor did they have as their main focus the Lord Jesus. It seems to me that often the unique person and the unique ministry of the Lord Jesus are not at the centre of much gospel preaching and writing today. Why is it that we rarely ‘gospel’ with any of the four gospels ? Why is so much gospel preaching focussed on people and their need? Could this be one of the reasons why so much evangelistic preaching today is so powerless to change lives? Because it is not God’s gospel!? Because it is not the gospel which is the “power of God to salvation” (Romans 1:16)? When God the Father proclaims the gospel – his gospel – he speaks about the Son and so must we.